In typical Drama Dept. fashion, playwright Douglas Carter Beane's new comedy, The Country Club, has extended before it has even begun. The new production, which begins previews Sept. 14, was to have run until Oct. 9 at the Greenwich House Theatre. It has now prolonged its run an entire month, to Nov. 6. The show will officially open Sept. 29.
Beane had his first critical and commercial success when the Drama Dept. -- the theatre troupe he helped found and oversees as artistic director -- staged his Manhattan comedy, As Bees in Honey Drown. Christopher Ashley, a company member since piloting As Thousands Cheer, will direct Club. Cynthia Nixon heads the cast, which also features Amy Sedaris, Amy Hohn, Tom Everett Scott, Callie Thorne, Frederick Weller and Peter Benson.
The Country Club tells of a woman who returns to her hometown after her marriage goes bad. She then becomes reacquainted with her old high school friends through a series of parties at her family's country club, stretching from New Year's to Christmas.
Nixon, of cable TV's "Sex and the City," has appeared in fully four Drama Dept. productions, including June Moon and Hope Is the Thing with Feathers. Comic actress Sedaris is half of the Talent Family, a company made up of she and her brother, humorist David Sedaris. Together, the have produced a string of hilarious, irreverent plays, including One Woman Shoe and The Little Freida Mysteries. She rarely accepts gigs in non-Talent Family productions, though she was seen as the stage manager in Paul Rudnick's The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told.
Hohn, a company member, appeared in June Moon. Benson was seen in Broadway's Little Me. For information, call (212) 239-6200.
-- By Robert Simonson
